1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital signal recording/reproducing apparatus, a digital signal receiving apparatus, and a digital signal transmitting method that are used for receiving a digital signal in a digital broadcast, a cable television, or the like, and for performing a copy control therefor so as to record/reproduce the digital signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally speaking, there exist the following 4 types of conventional copy control information: Never Copy that means not to permit of being copied even once, Copy Once that means to permit of being copied only once, Copy Free that means to permit of being copied any number of times, and No More Copy that means a child copy of the Copy Once. Such information as the Never Copy, the Copy Once, and the Copy Free has been written into a digital signal from, e.g., a broadcasting station. With respect to the above-described copy information, when a user tries to make their backup copies into his or her recording medium, the results are as follows: The Never Copy, which never permits of being copied, can not absolutely be recorded. The Copy Once can be recorded as a time-shift of shifting the watching time, and the user can make its child copy into the recording medium just once. At that time, the digital signal written into the recording medium becomes the No More Copy, which means that it is impossible to produce its child copy further from then on. The user can copy with the Copy Free any number of times.
When wishing to watch a program on the air at a convenient time, or wishing to watch the program not one time but many times repeatedly, there is a request for recording the program once into the user's recording apparatus for the purpose of the time-shift. If, however, a broadcast subjected to the copy control is on the air in the digital broadcast, the cable broadcast, or the like, it becomes absolutely impossible to perform the recording for the purpose of the time-shift. Moreover, a digital record based on the digital broadcast or the cable broadcast, which will become the mainstream in the future, can be recorded with its high picture-quality maintained. This condition enhances even further the ratio of such a scheme as the above-described Never Copy that never permits of the recording, eventually giving rise to an expectation that the regulation toward the recording will become severer than that in the case of an analogue record.
In this way, the Never Copy, which is expected to be used a lot in the digital broadcast, is against the user's request for wishing to perform the time-shift recording. In addition, since the user cannot change freely the time to watch or to listen to a program, the user cannot help restricting his or her behavior or giving up the watching or the listening. This results in a situation where only a portion of the users can enjoy the benefit of the digital broadcast.